qathet Regional District (qRD) directors have postponed five recommendations pertaining to capital procurement or reserve contributions for the regional district’s fire departments.
At the December 4 finance committee meeting, directors carried a motion recommending the board accept for information the newly updated capital asset replacement plan for fire services.
Discussion then moved to a recommendation to amend the capital asset replacement plan for Lasqueti Island, including an allocation of $600,000 from the community work fund and $200,000 from the Lasqueti Island Volunteer Fire Protection Service statutory reserve to fund apparatus purchases, including the replacement of two vehicles. The recommendation included authorizing the regional board to borrow up to $200,000 for the purchase of the trucks, and that the reserve fund contributions be bumped up from $14,025 to $200,000 per year.
Electoral Area E director and finance committee chair Andrew Fall, who represents Lasqueti, said he would like to move to postpone the initiative to the January 2025 finance committee meeting.
“Clearly, there is a big gap between the Lasqueti Island Volunteer Fire Department reserves and looming apparatus and fire hall needs, so I can understand the basis of these recommendations,” said Fall. “However, the dramatic increases of even the low end of these proposals exceeds the sustainable capacity of the taxpayers. These financial challenges have built up over several decades and it will take time to resolve.”
Fall said that based on draft one of the qRD five-year financial plan, Lasqueti represents about three per cent of the qRD tax base. He said the plan before the finance committee outlined a range of borrowing options to raise up to $1 million for apparatus.
“While proper asset management is clearly important, an underlying issue is Lasqueti residents can’t afford to purchase two new apparatus in one step,” said Fall. “One way to mitigate this would be to purchase used vehicles. Lasqueti is considered unprotected by the fire underwriters survey due to several reasons that are not likely to change in the foreseeable future.”
Fall said while this has downsides for people wanting home insurance, islanders should take advantage of one potential upside, which is the ability to purchase good used apparatus for which value has dropped precipitously as it approaches the fire underwriters survey age limit.
Fall then brought up contributions to reserves. He said they would be funded by taxation. He said the 500 island residents have the lowest per capita income of any of the qRD electoral areas.
“These numbers just aren’t feasible and I am not willing to approve such a dramatic increase in the requisition limits on behalf of the Lasqueti electors, at least without some time and consultation with the public, and hence, I would like to postpone this to the January meeting to give some time for the public to digest this,” said Fall.
The committee voted to postpone.
There were also capital plans for Malaspina Volunteer Fire Department, Savary Island Fire Department and Northside Volunteer Fire Department. There was also a recommendation that the committee direct staff to provide a report for options and timelines for the replacement of the Lasqueti Island North Fire Hall.
Directors voted to postpone decisions on all the recommendations to the January finance committee.
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